Theo Härder (born August 28, 1945 in

Bad Neustadt an der Saale Bad Neustadt an der Saale, officially Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale and often simply called Bad Neustadt, is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the Rhön-Grabfeld district in Lower Franconia. It is situated on the rivers Fränk ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

) is a Professor of Computer Science at the

University of Kaiserslautern Technical University of Kaiserslautern (German: ''Technische Universität Kaiserslautern'', also known as TU Kaiserslautern or TUK) is a public research university in Kaiserslautern, Germany. There are numerous institutes around the university, ...

Life and career

Theo Härder studied

electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the

Technische Universität Darmstadt The Technische Universität Darmstadt (official English name Technical University of Darmstadt, sometimes also referred to as Darmstadt University of Technology), commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt ...

, earning his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

there in 1975. In 1976 he moved to the

IBM Research - Almaden IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

. In 1977 he returned to TU Darmstadt as a professor at the Department of Computer Science. In 1980 he accepted an appointment at the University of Kaiserslautern in computer science.

Accomplishments

Härder has received numerous awards for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

s. He participated in the development of System R, the first

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relati ...

management system. In 1983, he and

Andreas Reuter Andreas Reuter (born October 31, 1949) is a German computer science professor and research manager. His research focuses on databases, transaction systems, and parallel and distributed computer systems. Reuter has been scientific and executive dir ...

coined the acronym

ACID In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a se ...

to describe the essential characteristics of a distributed relational database (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability). These four properties, atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID), describe the major highlights of the transaction paradigm, which has influenced many aspects of development in database systems.

Awards

Konrad Zuse Medal The Konrad Zuse Medal for Services to Computer Science is the highest award of the (German Computer Science Society), given every two years to one or sometimes two leading German computer scientists. It is named after German computer pioneer Konrad ...

, 2001

Honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

from Universität Oldenburg, 2002

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harder, Theo German computer scientists 1945 births Living people Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni Technische Universität Darmstadt faculty